A newly developed multilayer semiconductor x-ray detector for the observations of wide energy-range x rays

Abstract

For the purpose of the developments of wide-energy-range-sensitive x-ray detectors, we have designed and fabricated a new-type multilayer semiconductor x-ray detector. This new-type detector has been characterized using synchrotron radiation from a 2.5-GeV positron storage ring at the Photon Factory of the National Laboratory for High Energy Physics (KEK). This new detector is essentially composed of four layers of commercially available photodiodes. Each photodiode is made from a 300-μm thick, and a 10×10-mm square-shaped wafer. For the common affiliation of these individual photodiodes, the quantum efficiency normalized by the photon energy η/E begins to decrease at 8 keV, and then η/E decreases down to 26% at 20 keV. On the other hand, for our newly designed detector a flat response even in the 10–20-keV energy regime (beam line 15C at the Photon Factory) is observed, and even at 100 keV η/E<30% is still anticipated. This new x-ray detector has various advantages: (i) A compact, and (ii) outgas-free detector for a high-vacuum use, along with (iii) a high degree of immunity to ambient magnetic fields. Furthermore, (iv) the combination of the x-ray signal outputs from each detector layer provides information on the x-ray emitting electron energies. These properties are quite suitable for the use of the fusion-oriented plasma x-ray diagnostics under intense-magnetic field and high-vacuum conditions so as to interpret wide-band x-ray emitting electron-velocity distribution functions from the x-ray data.